31 August 2012

The Orioles keep winning and defying the historical norm in terms of run based metrics. The projected final totals has the Orioles only a single win behind Tampa along with Detroit and the Angels. If you only look at the last 30 games...the projection puts them three back. It will be an exciting month.

26 August 2012

This column began as a thesis on how Joe Saunders might be helpful to the Orioles this year and what it would cost to acquire him. That changed as the Orioles ended the speculation and agreed on a deal with the Diamondbacks. Free Agent to be Joe Saunders and an undisclosed amount of cash come to the Orioles for Matt Lindstrom and a player to be named later. There has been no information on the player to be named later other than it was mentioned that this individual is a not a "targeted" prospect from the lower level of the minors who will be determined after the season. This means that there is a group of players the Diamondbacks will be allowed to select from that has at the moment been agreed upon. Additionally, it is possible that the group of prospects for selection may change depending on the success of the Orioles. This possibility would be similar to the Steve Trachsel for Scott Moore and Rocky Cherry deal in 2007. The Cubs made the playoffs and that resulted in the Orioles also receiving Jake Renshaw.

What did the Orioles lose?

On a team with many weaknesses, the Orioles have something in excess: relief pitching. The Orioles have relief in spades this year. Matt Lindstrom has a 2.72 ERA. When the season ended last year, that mark would have been beaten by only Jim Johnson. This year, Darren O'Day, Troy Patton, Luis Ayala, and Pedro Strop all have better marks. The Orioles also have decent arms in Jake Arrieta and whoever else falls out of the rotation. Many of these arms are right handed like Lindstrom. In terms of pure numbers and effectiveness, Lindstrom was neither special or unique on this team.One thing the Orioles need?

The Orioles' starting pitching has been incredibly uneven this season.

W

L

ERA

IP

ERA+

Wei-Yin Chen*

12

7

3.87

151

108

Tommy Hunter

4

8

5.95

121

70

Jason Hammel

8

6

3.54

109.1

118

Jake Arrieta

3

9

6.13

101.1

68

Brian Matusz*

5

10

5.40

85

78

Miguel Gonzalez

5

3

3.66

66.1

115

Chris Tillman

6

2

3.71

51

114

Zach Britton*

3

1

5.59

37

75

Dana Eveland*

0

1

4.73

32.1

89

Steve Johnson

2

0

3.18

17

134

Wei-Yin Chen and Jason Hammel have kept the rotation afloat for much of the year. Neither are having great seasons, but they are certain having very good ones. Jason Hammel could have actually been a fringe Cy Young argument if he had not missed eight starts this year. Beyond those two, the Orioles have seen horrific results from several pitchers (e.g., Zach Britton) and very good performances from several pitchers (e.g., Zach Britton). The team faces an open question of how successful can this squad be with Chris Tillman, Steve Johnson and whoever else they use. Combine that with a desire to lower the workloads for Miguel Gonzalez and Chen...that makes for a starting pitching deficit. Joe Saunders may help fulfill some of that need.

Who is Joe Saunders?

Saunders is in his eighth season as a starting pitcher. He has never made an appearance as anything other than a starting pitcher.

Age

Tm

ERA

G

IP

ERA+

HR/9

BB/9

SO/9

24

LAA

7.71

2

9.1

57

2.9

3.9

3.9

25

LAA

4.71

13

70.2

96

0.8

3.7

6.5

26

LAA

4.44

18

107.1

102

0.9

2.9

5.8

27

LAA

3.41

31

198

131

1

2.4

4.7

28

LAA

4.6

31

186

95

1.4

3.1

4.9

29

TOT

4.47

33

203.1

92

1.1

2.8

5

30

ARI

3.69

33

212

109

1.2

2.8

4.6

31

ARI

4.22

21

130

102

1.2

2.1

6.2

What you can see above is that Saunders was very good one year and has consistently performed at a back end level for a first division team. Here are a few more numbers for your perusal.

Age

Tm

bWAR

fWAR

24

LAA

-0.2

-0.2

25

LAA

0.5

1.3

26

LAA

1.2

1.8

27

LAA

4.4

2.8

28

LAA

0.3

1.1

29

TOT

-0.3

1.7

30

ARI

1.4

1

31

ARI

0.6

1.7

As a reminder, the basic difference between the two metrics is that bWAR credits the pitcher for batted ball quality while fWAR does not consider potential pitcher effects on batted ball quality. I wrote about the two statistics in a post about last winter's Jeremy Guthrie - Jason Hammel deal. So, yes, you can argue that Saunders is more of the same that the Orioles already have or that he may be a solid average pitcher.

Something has also been made of Saunders' poor record at home with the inflated offensive atmosphere in Arizona. Below are a couple seasons from his time with the Angels and his last two years in Arizona.

Angels

Home

wOBA

Road

wOBA

2007

5.11

0.37

3.71

0.312

2008

4.27

0.322

2.55

0.289

Dbacks

Home

wOBA

Road

wOBA

2011

4.42

0.349

3.14

0.309

2012

5.8

0.371

2.92

0.288

As you can see...you could have made similar arguments about how Saunders would benefit pitching elsewhere. 2009 and 2010 showed rather even performance. More so, the Angels home field is not a place where it is particularly easy for home runs to be hit. It seems doubtful that the Orioles should expect him to be a low 3 era pitcher.

Additional Value as a Relief Pitcher?

Saunders has pitched in 285 games as a professional. He has thrown in relief once. It was 2005 when he was with the Salt Lake City Buzz. Saunders value as a reliever is purely hypothetical as we have no indication whether he can actually pitch in relief. The Orioles saw something similar with Dontrelle Willis this year. He tried to throw in relief, met some hard times, and could not do it. Some of that may have been mental and some of it may be physical damage to his arm. That said, we do not know if Saunders is OK being in the pen.

The hope is that he can use his ability to shut down lefties as a starter to his advantage in the pen.

Left

Right

wOBA

FIP

wOBA

FIP

2006

0.237

2.43

0.327

4.49

2007

0.273

2.53

0.359

4.69

2008

0.294

3.56

0.309

4.60

2009

0.306

4.13

0.361

5.01

2010

0.310

3.93

0.358

4.80

2011

0.250

2.67

0.347

4.90

2012

0.208

1.65

0.361

5.01

If Saunders can handle the relief state of mind, he could prove to be a rather impressive force from the bullpen against lefties. With expanded rosters in September, a larger bullpen would enable more frequent use of batter specific match ups. With a smaller rotation in the playoffs, a similar situation could also be utilized.

Conclusion

The Orioles adding Joe Saunders to the mix while bring Jake Arrieta to the bullpen will give Buck better options to use at the Major League level. This is certainly not a game changing trade. Few deals in August are game changers. However, the Orioles have been able to convert their abundance of relief talent into improving the talent available for starting pitching. As long as the player to be named later is no one of great importance, this is a solid deal looking to go as deep as possible this year.

And, so, yes, the Orioles continue to defy their peripherals. According to their run differential, the Orioles have have 11 more games than they should have won. At the moment, they join the 2009 Mariners (10), 2008 Angels (12), 2007 Diamondbacks (11), 2005 Diamondbacks (11), and the 2004 Yankees (12) as teams that have exceeded their expected win total by 10 or more wins. In other words, it is an occasion that has happened 1.5% of the time in the 2000s. One remarkable trait of all teams is that they did well in close games.

W

L

2012

Orioles

23

6

2004

Yankees

24

16

2005

Dbacks

28

18

2007

Dbacks

32

20

2008

Angels

31

21

2009

Mariners

35

20

Close games do not fully explain their knacks for exceeding the run differential, but if you combine that with general deviation from the projected win totals...it makes sense that these events can occur. It also makes sense that these events are likely not representative of any skills. However, the data set is too small and the analysis is not incredibly in depth to make any solid conclusions. Basically, the take home likely is that hopefully the ride continues this year and, come offseason, the team cannot rest on its laurels.

For this update, I have included "luck." This metric can be defined as what our fWAR projection of wins compares with actual wins. A positive number means the team is outperforming their projection. As you can see, fWAR is wholly unimpressed with the Orioles. Only the Indians have a lower fWAR than the Orioles. This is quite remarkable.

As a reminder, the p30 projection considers the fWAR of the last 30 days.

Team

Wins

"Luck"

Proj Final

*

p30 Proj

TEX

75

0

97

West

97

NYY

73

-1

94

East

93

CHW

70

8

88

Central

88

TBR

70

4

88

WC

92

OAK

69

7

87

tWC

88

BAL

69

17

84

3 GB

86

DET

68

0

87

tWC

90

LAA

66

-3

85

2 GB

85

SEA

61

4

77

10 GB

79

BOS

60

-7

78

9 GB

77

KCR

56

-2

73

14 GB

74

TOR

56

2

71

16 GB

67

CLE

55

4

70

17 GB

64

MIN

51

-3

66

21 GB

67

One good bit of news in the past few days has been the Red Sox - Dodgers deal. The Orioles have several games remaining against the Red Sox and they have become a weaker team by removing Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett. In their place will be the continually underwhelming James Loney and whoever the Red Sox can get to be their fifth pitcher. The more Aaron Cook and Felix Dubront are in the BoSox rotation the better. Of course, this makes the Rays and Yankees schedule easier, but it helps the Orioles against the teams in the other divisions vying for the Wild Card.

20 August 2012

In a comment on the post before this one I put forth my current untested hypothesis on how the Orioles can win so many close games, but look so awful in games decided by more than a few runs. Here it is:
The Orioles have a solid bullpen to go along with a feast or famine starting rotation and an offense that is atrocious at hitting themselves or walking themselves on base. Therefore, in games where the score is close, the Orioles' solo or two run home runs help make the difference. In games in which the other team get more of a lead, the Orioles simply cannot put enough men on base unless they begin to chase relievers.
That is it. I do not know if it is correct. Why I do know is that somehow the Orioles are doing something that no one has done before to the extent that they are doing it. They are dominant in close games and positively atrocious in the others. Remarkable.

Here is a graph for your amusement depicting runs scored or giving over the course of a single game as a frequency:

Here is a cumulative run scoring chart, adding from low scores to high scores:

I am not sure if that informs us of much. However, you do see a shift where the Orioles tend to score two to five runs at a greater frequency than their opponents. They have also given up four scores higher than any they have produced this season. It may well be that this team is constructed to brilliantly split hairs.

19 August 2012

This series keeps chugging along with the Orioles slowly, but steadily, moving upwards even though they still project as having the fewest wins remaining in the season. If you gauge the team by the full season, then they are below average. If you gauge them by the last thirty games, then they are average. However, they still seem to figure out how to win (ignoring July).

16 August 2012

Yesterday, the news came out on Melky Cabrera testing positive for testosterone and that he would be immediately serving a 50 game suspension. As I understand the suspension, it means that he will be available for the playoffs if the Giants make it. Several writers reacted to the news:

John Sickels
Cabrera has greatly exceeded expectations the last two seasons, and now
we know why. Certainly, his record as a prospect didn't imply that he
was capable of this kind of performance.

Danny Knobler
Yes, Melky suspension is tough on Giants. But as one player from another team said, they already benefited from his cheating.

Jon Heyman
His career turnaround seemed too good to be true. And so it was.

All of these are really unsubstantiated comments. Danny Knobler implicitly agrees with an unnamed player making a
conclusion based on unsubstantiated connections between drug use and
performance. Jon Heyman falls into the same boat. John Sickels, a conduit for evaluation on prospects, should know full well that player development is not linear. It surprises me that someone who has spent his life analyzing player performance would so quickly attach himself to the idea that testosterone cures all. It is disappointing to read such a knee jerk response from a writer who was really the person who got me into more critically evaluating prospects.

What do we know about testosterone and athletic performance?

Testosterone will increase muscle mass. It will increase muscle mass more with exercise. This muscle is largely functional in that it certainly does increase strength (something human growth hormone has not been found to do making it the biggest bogeyman of this thrashing, poorly thought out effort to reduce PED use in baseball). So, yes, testosterone will make you bigger and stronger and using it with a great deal of hard work will make you even bigger and stronger.

This leads to the next part of the logic train: does strength mean you are a better baseball player?

Maybe, but we do not know. I think everyone is aware of the wall of sound declaring that PEDs actually increase performance, but there actually is a great body of evidence suggesting otherwise. The answer is not incredibly clear cut, so to immediately assume everything is a mirage is somewhat Chicken Little-ing the discussion.

That is what truly irritates me about the whole PED discussion...it simply is not a discussion. It is a horde of folks running and chasing after an easy concept without truly considering the complexity of the situation. Human growth hormone supplements could have been an amazing conversation about the state of science and how athletes are using the substances. Instead, we throw every player using into a raging fire where taking a more conservative approach would have enabled us to determine more clearly whether or not a substance improved performance or not. This resulted in MLB spending millions of dollar to initiate and maintain an HGH program that likely roots out (poorly) usage of a substance that in all likelihood does nothing to improve performance.

Honestly, I think the only proven effects of PED use in baseball is lazy sports writing.

Yes, Melky cheated. No, we don't know if him cheating with testosterone had anything to do with his improved performance. It probably is not directly unrelated. It probably has a great deal of placebo effect riding on it. However, a lot, if not almost all, of it is likely Melky. His career walk rate, strikeout rate, stolen base rate, and home run rate are all in expected ranges. The difference is that he BABIP is about 20% higher than his career level (and we should expect that to crash) and, with that increase in BABIP, he is showing an increase in secondary power. For a player at an age where peak performance could be expected and someone who had not to dissimilar seasons in 2011 and 2009 when accounting for BABIP...this season is really not remarkable.

13 August 2012

Kevin Gausman (rhp, Class A-SS Aberdeen) made his home debut for the Iron Birds on Sunday, tossing three scoreless innings. Gausman cut through Connecticut's line-up with little difficulty, the lone hit surrendered coming off the bat of former Stanford Cardinal (and fellow 2012 draftee) Jake Stewart.

Gausman's 2012 pro action will be limited to short stints as he rounds out his work load for the year, which began back in February with LSU. Through two starts, the young righty's cumulative line sits at 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, and 5 SO.

Currently Baltimore's #3 prospect, Gausman has true #1 upside and could headline the Orioles future rotation or slot in behind Dylan Bundy, depending on how each refines. His fastball and change-up are already consistently above-average to plus, with each of his curve and his slider showing plus at times over the past two seasons.

3. Kevin Gausman (rhp, unassigned) / Age: 21y6m / Prev. Rank: N/ABaltimore's first round selection in the 2012 draft (fourth overall
selection) has an impact arsenal and has shown a proclivity for
absorbing instruction over the past two years at LSU. His progression is
unlikely to be linear, but the finished product could be a legit #1 or
#2 starter. He should have limited pro exposure this summer, and will
likely start 2013 with Class A-Adv. Frederick.

We broke down Gausman in more detail here, as part of our draft coverage. His next start should come next weekend, again against Connecticut.

12 August 2012

With the loss last night, the Orioles fell out of the Wild Card lead and are now a half game backwith Detroit. Tampa and Oakland now lead the Wild Card. What remains exciting is that this is the first true threat by the Orioles to get into the playoffs this last in the season since 1997 when they went wire to wire in first place. In fact, 0.5 games out of the Wild Card is a good 8.5 games better than there next closest mark on August 12 since 1997.

With 15 years gone between genuinely competitive years, we have many a fan who is unfamiliar with a winning club and many who do not exactly comprehend how well the team has picked up wins.

Below is a table comparing the records of all Orioles teams on August 12 since 1993.

11 August 2012

I put in a different column this week. As mentioned before, I have been using season long fWAR to project future performance. The idea is that perhaps fWAR is a better metric to use for a projection than simple runs scored and runs given. The new column (p30) uses fWAR from the past 30 days to project future performance. I do not know if it is a better way to do things or not. Regardless, both methods are utilizing a descriptive statistic as the basis for projecting performance.

10 August 2012

There’s been a lot of talk about the luck the Baltimore
Orioles have had in being nine games above .500 going into the second weekend
of August, tied for a berth in the new second Wild Card slot and generally
playing over their heads across the board.

Specifically, it’s been tied to the Orioles’ record in
one-run games—22-6 (.786) –and their record in extra innings—12-2 (.857).
Neither of those winning percentages are sustainable at those margins.

The above sentence should be read not as “the Orioles are
about to regress in one-run games and extra innings, hard” but instead as “it’s
more likely than not that moving forward, they will see a more normal rate of
success; that is, closer to .500.” There is absolutely no reason that just because
the Orioles have played .750 ball in one-run games up until this arbitrary
point, that they must play deplorably to even things out—just that you
shouldn’t be too surprised or disappointed if that goes on for a little while.
In other words, there’s no such thing as being due. This is elementary
probability.

But baseball games—and most human endeavors—are governed by
far more than luck, and the most important thing that a team can have in a game
that’s late and close is good pitching. As Taylor Teagarden has demonstrated on
multiple occasions, if a game goes long enough just about any hitter will do;
it’s the pitchers that really matter. Once you get into the soft belly of a
bullpen things have a tendency to go south very fast.

The Orioles bullpen, however, hasn’t shown many signs of
that—excepting 2011 closer Kevin Gregg, of course, who has been all but
explicitly demoted to mop-up duty. In the offseason there was massive turnover
in the composition of the Orioles pen from last year, due mostly to the efforts
of Buck Showalter and new General Manager Dan Duquette. Showalter is not, and
should not, be showrunning actual baseball ops decisions, but the man knows how
to put together and use a pitching staff. It’s useful now, I think, as the
Orioles go into the final run of the season, to examine a few members of the
current Baltimore pen and exactly how they’re doing what they’re
doing—especially late and close.

Mop-Up: Kevin Gregg

2011 Role: MLB Closer,
Baltimore

2012 Compensation:
$5,800,000

2013 Contract Status:
Free Agent

Let’s start with Kevin, actually. Gregg was last year’s
closer and Gregg was abysmal last year, but one hardly had much to do with the
other; Gregg’s a marginal major leaguer to begin with and it’s likely only his
make-up and personal bravado kept him hanging around in the late innings as
long as he did. Not that Gregg has a bad make-up, per se. Closer mentality is
horribly overrated and terribly misused as a term, but the fact remains that
the late innings are higher pressure situations than the earlier ones simply
because journalists, fans, coaches, and other players act as if it were so.
There have been pitchers—LaTroy Hawkins is the classic example walked out here,
but there have been others—who have been able to handle every relief duty
except the closer’s role. The reason men like Hawkins are so rare are because
generally players that can’t psychologically handle closing also can’t handle
other instances of high leverage relief, pitch poorly across the board and are
quickly remanded back to the minor leagues.

All that said, having a closer mentality doesn’t actually
make one better at throwing baseballs, as Orioles fans discovered when Gregg
came out. There was a metric last year that I had called the Kevin Gregg Hat
Trick: the strikeout, the walk, and the hit allowed in a single inning. There
were instances last year where Gregg recorded two of those in the same outing,
though he never had an inning where he recorded a save with three, to my
knowledge. Considering that recording three Kevin Gregg Hat Tricks requires
allowing six baserunners while making no outs on the basepaths, I’m not even
sure it’s possible. As the year wore on, he began allowing more hits and
walking more batters while striking out fewer and trying to keep a running tally
just became an exercise in depression.

Gregg’s been a bit of a nuisance in 2012, but nothing
heart-stopping or nightmare-fueling like last year. The reason isn’t because his
pitching’s improved all that much—his 105 ERA+, 1.76 K/BB, 1.598 WHIP line in
2012 is better than his 97 ERA+, 1.33 K/BB, 1.642 WHIP line in 2011, but not
excessively so—but because his game-entering Leverage Index (gmLI), which
tracks how important the situation is to the team when a pitcher enters the
game with 1.0 being average pressure, has plummeted from 1.4 in 2011 to 0.5 in
2012. So in essence, he’s being used just like a guy who can give you 60-70
innings of middling with lots of hits, lots of walks, and lots of strikeouts
should be used—sparingly. Showalter gave Gregg an entire lost season to prove
he could pitch late and build his value, he couldn’t, he didn’t, he’s mop-up,
case closed.

To his credit, Gregg’s taken his demotion with surprising
grace considering his willingness to call out former teammate Koji Uehara last
year when the Baltimore media began debating whether Gregg or Uehara should
close, and there were reports that he’s tried to take on some sort of mentor
role towards younger players on the team. Good on him, I say. It’s a savvy
move, too: if you’re not going to beat the world on the field, you better show
that you’re worth something to a club off of it. Gregg probably won’t have
trouble finding work with a club next year, though it won’t be for the
ludicrous 2/12 the Orioles gave him.

Troy Patton’s had an interesting year; in fact, it might be
the most interesting of all of pitchers that returned to the pen from last
year’s squad. Patton came to Baltimore in the (first) Miguel Tejada trade,
which sent Miggy to Houston for Luke Scott, Patton, Matt Albers, Dennis
Sarfate, and Mike Costanzo. Scott is now a Tampa Bay Ray, Albers a Diamondback
by way of Boston, Sarfate’s in Japan and Costanzo is tooling around the
Cincinnati organization, but Patton remains in Baltimore. He was the best
prospect in the deal (Scott was already a major leaguer, if a part time player
of sorts before coming to Baltimore), and he rewarded the Orioles by
immediately tearing his labrum and missing all of 2008. He stayed in the minors
for almost all of 2009, pitching only 2/3 of an inning, but then came up late
in 2011 put up a 142 ERA+ and 4.40 K/BB (components: 6.6 K/9, 1.5 BB/9) in 30
IP working mostly in relief of beleaguered Orioles starters. He looked to build
on that in 2012.

He has: 50 IP, 156 ERA+, 4.18 K/BB (8.3 K/9, 2.0 BB/9). He
wasn’t used as much of a longman in 2011 (1.5 IP per G), but that’s fallen even
further in 2012 (1.04 IP per G); Patton also has the distinction of being the
only left-handed pitcher in the pen most nights in 2012, so Showalter will
occasionally use him in match-ups situations; last year Mike Gonzalez had that
honor, and usually made a horror show of it.

I will begin by falling on my own sword: I wasn’t
particularly impressed with what I saw of Patton last year despite the numbers
and I thought the Orioles should have kept Zach Phillips, who came over from
the Texas Rangers at the same time as Pedro Strop, as the match-up lefty.
Phillips has been decent in AAA, but Patton has been one of the most useful
lefty relievers in baseball, putting up a 1.6 rWAR.

Patton’s going to get some money in arbitration, but he’ll
be around for a bit longer, and that’s good. He came up as a starter but
baseball in general and Baltimore specifically could use more guys who are able
to pitch 80-90 elite innings out of the pen with multiple innings per
appearance—it’ll be interesting to see if Patton will turn into a guy like
that. The Orioles starters could use it.

Middle Relief: Luis
Ayala

2011 Role: MLB Middle
Relief/Set-Up, New York Yankees

2012 Compensation:
$825,000

2013 Contract Status:
$1,000,000 Club Option ($100,000 Buyout)

Luis Ayala is a fantastic example of cheap lightning in a
bottle. He’s been a bit less overwhelming of late—it’s hard to play over one’s
head forever, especially in the AL East—but he’s put up a 159 ERA+ with a 3.00
K/BB (5.5 K/9, 1.8 BB/9). For his career Ayala has a 2.2 BB/9, which highlights
a common thread of the Baltimore bullpen this year: they don’t walk just about
anyone.

“Not walking anyone” correlates almost exactly with “being a
good relief arm;” a certain number of walks are acceptable so long as they’re
nullified by strikeouts, which don’t give those free runners much room to
advance like long flyballs into the corners or simple grounders to first can,
but really not walking anyone is the best policy. Some of the biggest problem
children of Orioles bullpens past—Chris Ray, for example, or last year’s Mike
Gonzalez and Kevin Gregg (hello there!)—struck out a lot of guys but walked a
whole lot, too. A little bad luck on batted ball placement and that goes south
real fast.

So Luis Ayala will likely be back next year, especially
considering the general esteem surrounding his current season, and he might be
less lucky than he’s been this year on batted balls or he might be luckier
still, but he’s certainly not a bad arm and at his cost, grabbing his option is
somewhat of a no-brainer.

Middle Relief: Darren
O’Day

2011 Role: MLB
Mop-Up, Texas; AAA Relief, Round Rock

2012 Compensation:
$1,325,000

2013 Contract Status:
Third Year Arbitration Eligible

Darren O’Day was one of the last acquisitions of the
MacPhail regime, picked up only a few days before Andy MacPhail stepped down as
Executive Vice President of Baseball Operatons—and so, one might presume given
his team and when the Orioles grabbed him, O’Day is an Oriole because manager
Buck Showalter wanted him. It was a good call.

O’Day pitches submarine style, and so far this year has been
good for him and for Baltimore: 45.2 IP, 165 ERA+, 5.50 K/BB (8.7 K/9, 1.6
BB/9). Once again, O’Day doesn’t walk anyone; and once again, like Ayala, his
BB/9 is a bit lower than his career rate (2.3 BB/9 in 226.1 IP). The best
bullpens are lucky and cheap, and the Orioles’ three major middle relievers not
walking anyone while costing less than $2.5 million altogether is a good
instance of that.

There’s been little discussion of splits here amongst the
middle relievers because Showalter doesn’t play to those, for the most part;
Patton, Ayala, and O’Day are all average an inning or more of relief, and
Showalter doesn’t have any one out guys he likes to play with—outside of the
stalwarts, bullpen spots are filled by guys that Showalter and Duquette want to
take a look at, like Stuart Pomeranz, Miguel Socolovich, Steve Johnson, and
Miguel Gonzalez. In the case of the latter two, they liked that look enough to
give the guys starts, and so far both have paid off. Sometimes Tommy Hunter or
Dana Eveland have hung around as long relievers and swingmen, but otherwise the
bullpen is essentially five or six guys.

Given his season and that he’ll likely be fairly cheap next
year too, I’d expect to see O’Day resigned before going to arbitration instead
of non-tendered.

Strop is a bit of a conundrum. He was acquired from Texas at
the end of last year for Mike Gonzalez and ever since he arrived he’s been
lights out. After a very good end to the 2011 season with Baltimore, he was in
contention with Jim Johnson for the closer’s spot going into camp this year—a
spot Johnson won mostly based on seniority and himself being a good pitcher.
Not that this seems to be a problem; Pedro Strop is pitching in the 7th
and 8th innings and is tied with Aroldis Chapman for the most
valuable reliever, by rWAR, in baseball with 2.8.

But how? Strop’s ERA+ is amazing, 332, but really ERA+ isn’t
too useful when evaluating relievers beyond “below 100 is very very bad.” His
K/BB, however, is only 1.58 (6.9 K/9, 4.3 BB/9). He’s doing what Chris Ray and
Mike Gonzalez before him did: he’s walking far too many batters. How, then, is
he getting away with it?

Strop is inducing terrible, terrible contact and getting
very, very lucky. His GB% is 68, with a 3.79 GB/FB rate. His BABIP against is
.231. His strand rate is 90.3%. Some of this might be sustainable—specifically,
the groundball rate—and if it is it will make the other stuff more sustainable,
but being real: Pedro Strop is not Aroldis Chapman. He’s just gotten outcomes
vaguely like him. The good news is that Strop does have strikeout stuff, and if
he can figure out how to make it move and make it a strike at the same time, he
could turn into a legit late inning guy.

Closer: Jim Johnson

2011 Role: MLB Relief
Ace, Baltimore

2012 Compensation:
$2,625,000

2013 Contract Status:
Third Arbitration Year Eligible

Johnson pitched 91 innings out of the pen last year in 69
games, showing up anywhere from the sixth to the ninth innings; he rarely
showed up for less than one and he regularly threw two. By the end of the year
he was the closer in all but name, and there was some discussion over the
offseason whether or not Johnson would return to starting as he had in the
minors or if he would become the team’s closer.

He became the closer, and while generally I think that’s
been a waste of his talents as a durable sinkerballer who doesn’t strike a lot
of guys out, walks even fewer, and gets a lot of groundballs, the performance
of the rest of the bullpen hasn’t really pushed the issue and I’m willing to
accept that Showalter probably knows better than I do. That said, Johnson’s
gotten very lucky on grounders finding defenders up until recently—the last
couple weeks have highlighted why the strikeout is preferable, especially with
a bad defense behind you. Nevertheless, he’s been fine for what he is.

Honorable Mention:
Matt Lindstrom

Lindstrom’s been hurt a bit, only recording 30 innings to
the 45-50 innings of the other three middle relievers, but just about every
results-based analysis of them applies to him too. He’s been valuable, and the
Jeremy Guthrie for Jason Hammels/Matt Lindstrom deal is looking like the steal
of the year even if neither Oriole pitcher is especially healthy right now.

---

So the Orioles pen going into the last fifty or so games of
the season is essentially six men (and Kevin Gregg), all of whom are having
some degree of an amazing year and none of whom are locked in for long in case
that goes south in 2013. All in all, I’d say the Orioles front office did a
pretty good job with this one.

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Contributors

Jon Shepherd - Founder/Editor@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

Matt Kremnitzer - Assistant Editor@mattkremnitzerMatt joined Camden Depot in early 2013. His work has been featured on ESPN SweetSpot and MASNsports.com.

Matthew Cassidy - WriterMatt joined Camden Depot before Spring Training in 2017. His love of music is surpassed only by his obsessions with food (unhealthy) and baseball statistics (totally healthy).

Patrick Dougherty - Writer@pjd0014Patrick joined Camden Depot in the fall of 2015, following two years writing for Baltimore Sports & Life. He is interested in data analysis and forecasting, and cultivates those skills with analysis aimed at improving the performance of the Orioles (should they ever listen).

Nate Delong - Writer@OriolesPGNate created and wrote for Orioles Proving Ground prior to joining Camden Depot in the middle of 2013. His baseball resume includes working as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions and as a Video Intern for the Baltimore Orioles. His actual resume is much less interesting.

Matt Perez - Writer@FanOfLaundryMatt joined Camden Depot after the 2013 season. He is a data analyst/programmer in his day job and uses those skills to write about the Orioles and other baseball related topics.

Joe Reisel - WriterJoe has followed the Norfolk Tides now for 20 seasons. He currently serves as a Tides GameDay datacaster for milb.com and as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). He is computer programmer/analyst by day.

Joe Wantz - WriterJoe is a baseball and Orioles fanatic. In his spare time, he got his PhD in political science and works in data and analytics in Washington DC.